ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- The PGA Championship dawned Friday with a two-shot penalty, and the East Course at Oak Hill Country Club never got any easier. By day's end, only three players had beaten par for 36 holes. This is major championship golf at its finest. This is major championship golf in 2003, a year when an unknown can hoist the Claret Jug at the British Open.

	Oak Hill has frustrated Tiger Woods so much that he's avoided talking to the press after both rounds.

We should have known that Shaun Micheel (Muh-KEEL), or someone like him, would take a two-stroke lead with birdies at his final two holes Friday. America didn't know this, of course. In place of Thursday's blackout, on Friday TNT provided America with a Micheel blackout. The network signed off its coverage with Micheel at 1-under so that it could show a rerun of Law & Order.

Micheel's final two birdies gave him a second-round 68 and put him at 3-under 137, two strokes ahead of Masters champion Mike Weir and another unlikely contender, the veteran Billy Andrade, who began the week as the third alternate.

Andrade capitalized on his good fortune by being so happy to be here that he hasn't noticed Oak Hill busting his Titleists. The rest of the field, almost to a man, trudged off the course looking mentally and physically fried. Tim Herron, he of the pear shape and pelican gullet, held the lead for a short while before bogeying four of his final seven holes to fall into a group of seven at 1-over.

"You try to make it fun," Herron said. "It's tough. You know it's going to happen for everyone."

It happened to Aaron Baddeley before he even teed off. The promising 22-year-old Aussie, playing in the first group off the 10th tee, thought his tee time was 7:35 a.m. He was off by five minutes. By the time Baddeley ran from the putting green, and arrived at 7:30 and 25 seconds, he had earned a two-stroke penalty. The Rules of Golf, as we were reminded by the scorecard fiasco at the British Open, bend for no one.

Although you wouldn't know it by their play this week, 96 of the top 100 players in the World Golf Ranking entered the PGA. In other words, Oak Hill is tougher than a truck-stop t-bone. The cut of 148 (8-over) sent home the pre-tournament favorite, Davis Love III, as well as British Open champion Ben Curtis, Retief Goosen, Justin Leonard and defending champion Rich Beem. Eleven players in the top 25 won't play this weekend.

You want to know how good a score par was? Rod Pampling, the co-first round leader, finished alone in fourth, at even par, when he holed out from 148 yards on No. 18 -- for a par.

"This golf course really gets in your head," Ernie Els said after a double bogey at No. 18 dropped him into that group at 1-over.

Oak Hill always has done that. In the final round of the 1989 U.S. Open, Tom Kite stood on the tee at No. 5 with a three-shot lead. Kite's tee shot landed in the creek that snakes along the right side of the fairway. He made a triple bogey there, two double bogeys on the back nine and remained the Best Player Never to Win a Major for three more years, until the 1992 U.S. Open.

On Friday, Phil Mickelson also held a three-shot lead on the par-4, 428-yard, dogleg right fifth. He hit his second shot into the creek, and made a double bogey to fall from 5-under to 3-under. That would be the last time anyone sniffed 5-under on this bright, scorching day. Mickelson hit into the same creek again off the seventh tee, made another double bogey, and coughed up the lead. After a 75, the current BPNTWAM is tied with Els and Herron at 1-over.

"There are some birdies out there if you hit some good shots," Mickelson said of a day when only five players broke par. "Certainly, the scores have gone back, and we've seen a lot of guys struggle today, but we also see a number of guys at 1-over par. That's a lot of guys keeping it around par, and that tells me that's a pretty fair test."

As the temperature peaked at 87 degrees Friday afternoon, the best place to be was wherever Andrade watched. Andrade, ranked only 135th on the money list this year, posted his score in the morning and watched the field recede behind him.

"I know one thing," Andrade said. "When they see my name on the leaderboard at 1-under, I don't think they are scared, O.K.? I don't think there's anybody scared that Andrade is up there. We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

This 85th PGA is beginning to resemble that 89th U.S. Open. Oak Hill is winning. Curtis Strange, at his peak as gritty a player as there ever was, won that tournament by churning out one par after another. Before Strange, Jack Nicklaus, who always let the other guy make the mistakes, won the 1980 PGA here.

If those tournaments are any guide, the winner of the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday will be a guy like Weir, or perhaps Els, who has won three majors by being more resilient than Rocky Balboa. Or Tiger Woods, nine strokes back at 146, and in the middle of a two-day news blackout of his own. Woods has blown past the media both days, then given a few comments to a PGA of America note-taker.

If this year is any guide, then Micheel will make it four first-time major winners in four tournaments. Or Andrade. Or maybe even Mickelson. Whoever wins the PGA will have to share the victory ceremony with Oak Hill.

Ivan Maisel is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.